


First Contact

by stclairvoyant



Category: Stand Still Stay Silent
Genre: Canada, Gen, Post-Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-19
Updated: 2015-04-13
Packaged: 2018-03-02 03:39:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 12,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2798174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stclairvoyant/pseuds/stclairvoyant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One hundred twenty one years after the fall, the silence from across the Atlantic is broken.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Foreword

# FIRST CONTACT

 

* * *

 

 

* * *

 

The first instalment of a multi-part series that will explore the consequences of having your world grow to four times what it was.

Before I start the actual narrative, I thought I'd offer a few little insights of the world I'm going to be writing in, and give you an impression of the people who live in it. A couple of statistics, the general nature of the different nationalities being introduced, and how they relate to the world around them. We've already seen how the Icelanders, the Norwegians, the Finns, the Swedes, and the Danes have coped with their new world, but how have things progressed on the other side of the Atlantic? And what happens when a bridge that has been closed for so long is opened once again?

 

* * *

 

 _ **Federation of Canada**_  
 _Population_ : 117,200 (Census, a. 120)  
 _Largest city_ and _Capital_ : Corner Brook, Newfoundland (pop. 23,100)  
 _Official languages_ : English · French · Inuttut  
 _Minority languages_ : Montagnais (Innu) · Greenlandic (Kalaallisut) · Danish  
  
 _About the Newfoundlanders_  
For all that the people of Newfoundland are the most populous in Canada—and, statistically, the most fortunate in terms of their percentage of survivors after the outbreak of the Rash—few in the Federation would dare to term them "lucky." The safety of the mainland of Newfoundland came only at the cost of a brutal quarantine that left hundreds of thousands of people at the mercy of the disease, and many families were divided by the iron curtain that fell upon the island. Today, they are a people who carefully maintain the technology of the Old World, staffing the oil rigs that power the mighty fleet of ancient, sturdy ships that patrols the seas for beasts and Leviathans.  
  
 _About the Québécois_  
The hardworking Quebeckers—once driven from their territory to the islands of Anticosti, the Madeleines, and a few coastal holds, have driven deep into the Darkness, first purifying the lands around the Manicouagan and Outardes rivers, and later striking to the south and carving out safe territory in Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island to farm. They are known far and wide as the iron-miners of Fermont and the lumberjacks who provide wood for all of Canada. In the intervening years since the outbreak, they have rediscovered their religious zeal, and consider their drive to purify a divine task handed down to them directly from God.  
  
 _About the French_  
While sharing a language with Québec, the French have a very different outlook from their western neighbours. With their nation abbreviated perhaps more greatly than any other in contemporary North America, having lost the entirety of metropolitan France, the inhabitants of its last remaining territory, the tiny islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon, strive through their deep, nostalgic longing to maintain the traditions of their patrimony. As a result, the Saint-Pierrais consider their town to be the cultural capital of the world, with broad avenues, theatre, museums, sidewalk cafés, and nightlife unlike anywhere else in Canada. Their historical separation also means that the French remain slightly more distant with their Canadian compatriots, and they maintain their own currency and certain government structures. They do not share the Quebeckers' embrace of religion, and have largely ignored their attempts at conversion.  
  
 _About the Inuit_  
Though their culture and society is very much centred on the original nation of Nunatsiavut, the native people of the coasts of Labrador, the nation has become very much pluralistic. Since the Greenland tragedy brought the few remaining survivors across the sea, all three of Canada's significant minority languages and cultures have shared space with Inuttut and the _linguae francae_ English and French. With a largely hostile, barren inland, the Inuit look instead to the sea. Under Agloolik's protection, they patrol far and wide to protect the Federation from the sea beasts and Leviathans that lurk in the ocean, commanded by the wrathful sea goddess Sedna, and they destroy the beasts' coastal nesting sites whenever they can.  
  
 _About the Mainers_  
The people of Maine lived on the edge of existence, surrounded by the Darkness of Boston to the south and Saint John to the north, for almost 80 years before being discovered by the Federation of Canada. Used to a hard and solitary life without much in the way of technology, the island-dwellers have prospered greatly with the help of Newfoundland, and look forward to someday joining the ranks as a formal member of their federation.  
  
 _ **The Nordic Council**_  
 _Population_ : 331,300 (Census, a. 120)  
 _Largest city_ and _Capital_ : Reykjavík, Iceland (pop. 48,900)  
 _Official languages_ : Icelandic · Swedish · Norwegian · Danish · Finnish  
 _Minority languages_ : English (Scottish) · Faroese · Estonian  
  
 _About the Faroese_  
Though decimated by the Rash like everyone else, the Faroese have weathered the loss of their home and waited patiently in the safety of Iceland until their islands could be cleansed once again. Diligent efforts to keep the language alive means that most children growing up in the reinhabited islands can speak their ancestral language, though Icelandic is still commonly heard in the streets of the re-established capital Tórshavn. Like Scotland and Estonia, it is an "incubator nation" which, as it is too small for self-sufficiency, does not hold a permanent seat at the Nordic Council but instead is represented by a rotating seat intended to advocate for the three small statelets.  
  
 _About the Scottish_  
English—once the world's common language—is no longer, and nowhere is this more obvious than the Shetland islands, capital of the incubator nation of Scotland. In the capital Lerwick (or _Leirvík_ in Icelandic), English is not commonly heard on the streets, and is mostly spoken by the older generations, while younger Scottish kids are completely fluent, if not native speakers, of the common language of Icelandic. Regardless of the language strife on the islands, the Scots, as a whole, are immensely grateful to the Icelanders for being saved, and even those who have left Iceland to return to settle Scotland maintain a good relationship with their former host country.  
  
 _About the Estonians_  
After 100 years stranded on the tiny island of Prangli, the Estonian population—once as small as 300—finally grew large enough, with the aid of careful intermarriage and a lot of Icelandic fertility clinic visits, that it became necessary to begin the cleansing of a larger island for their new home. With the aid of the cleanse-happy Swedes, new ground has been broken on the island of Hiiumaa, and the tiny nation's prospects, after 100 years of uncertainty, are finally looking up.

 

* * *

 

In the next instalment, I'll introduce you guys to our main characters, Claire Girard and Anna Okalik, and then First Contact will officially be kicked off. :)


	2. Chapter 2

**5 June, in the 121 st Year D.C., Saint-Pierre, France**   
  


Morning on the city harbour, and the redolent salt of the ocean hangs in the air all mixed with the musky tang of fresh-caught fish and garlic wreaths, cut with the cured meats and the wines and the dried spices in the warehouses by the water. Even from the Rue de Paris a few blocks off from Saint-Pierre's sheltered inlet of the Atlantic, the smells still waft from the port with a sailor's resolve, and in the first hours of June light, from the second-storey windows of Claire Girard's home, the smell of the sea mixes with the steamy air rising from a pot of winterberry tea and to her, that's the smell of abundance and of civilization—that's the smell that Claire, more than anything, associates with France.

Early summer is like this, sun's glancing rays on the painted roofs and the thick mélange of smells from all sides. This must be what Paris was once like, she thinks, and that half-conscious mythologizing hangs in the whispers and breezes of the town, from the scale-model Champs-Élysées and the Eiffel Tower constructed from little more than scrap metal, old photographs, and senile memory to the sidewalk cafés stocked from window to window with baguettes and wine-soaked cheeses (the real kind, now, with new-growth Prince Edward grapes, though one hundred years of tradition have accustomed most to the blueberry and lingonberry wines of Twillingate). Crossing the broad street of the main drag, she arrives at the seat of government, the old courthouse, grown with responsibility since the time before the Rash from a backwater post into the seat of the Sixth Republic.

For the last year she's held this job steady, young as she is for the post, serving as Minister for Foreign Affairs under the Artano government—a dynasty if there's ever been one on this island—and more importantly, under the tutelage of the infinitely fortuitously named Gérard Claireaux, a grandfatherly sort holding the office before her who's coached Claire into following in his footsteps, practising an old-world diplomacy that's become more of a formal anachronism than anything else in this day, now that everyone has been united under the flag and the government, however loose it might be, of Canada. These days, the "foreign" ministries have served as more of an auxiliary arm rooted to the powerful Federation Council, the errand-people of the political machinery that has maintained control and stability in the aftermath of the collapse—and who would they be to protest, in light of that stability?—and so the foreign ministry has taken up semi-permanent residency in Canada’s council annex in Saint-Pierre.

But upon her arrival at the steps of the council building, while she’s ready for a typical day's work a crowd twice anything she's seen, even during elections, has gathered. Through the mob of reporters and radio crews, Claire can barely see the entrance to the building, and it's only through the grace of a co-worker that she can worm her way in at all.

" _Girard_ , there you are," calls Charlotte, and she carves a path through the agitated throng, grabbing Claire by the wrist and sucking her into the rabbit hole. 

> **_Claire Girard_  
> ** _Age_ : 33 **  
> ** _Nationality_ : French  
>  _Immunity_ : **Yes**  
>  _Languages_ :     
>  _About_ : Born the scion of a powerful, old-guard French family, her father’s branch of the Girard clan was ostracized after he married for love, and so Claire instead grew up among the farms of Channel–Port aux Basques, Newfoundland. Claire hated the farms so much she vowed to return to France. She returned to great fanfare five years ago, only to end up sidelined into the marginal, mostly-ignored Foreign Ministry.
> 
> **_Charlotte Bélanger_  
> ** _Age_ : 30 **  
> ** _Nationality_ : Québécois  
>  _Immunity_ : **Yes**  
>  _Languages_ :    
>  _About_ : Charlotte didn’t take to the religious fervour of Québec she experienced in her childhood, so as soon as she had the opportunity to escape, she left for Saint-Pierre, earning a spot at the prestigious Sorbonne University. It is her deep and abiding embarrassment that she has not been able to rid herself of the strong Quebecker accent of her childhood.

Claire can hardly manage to get a word in as Charlotte jukes through the crowd. She shouts, “What’s going on?” but Charlotte doesn’t hear her, and simply continues until they’ve reached the safety of inside. 

“What’s going on?” Claire says again.

Charlotte shakes her head, eyes wild. “Haven’t you heard? Radio France has been covering nothing but since we heard early this morning!”

“I try _not_ to start my work before I even arrive, thanks very much. Heard about _what_ , Bélanger?”

“We’ve made contact! With Europe!” Charlotte says breathlessly, motioning for Claire to follow her deeper into the office.

Claire’s face devolves into puzzlement and disbelief. “We’ve made _what_?” she says.

“Hunting vessel radioed to homeport last night. They ran into a patrol from Norway, and we got the message at around 5 this morning from Rigolet.”

“You’re serious?” Claire asks. “Do you mean to tell me that we’ve just mended a hundred-twenty-year gap in communication with the other side of the Atlantic? And, besides that”—Claire’s voice catches in her throat, as she’s almost afraid to inquire further.

Charlotte already knows the question. For as long as Saint Pierre and Miquelon have been, to their knowledge, the only remaining French lands safe from the Darkness, any mention of Europe has carried with it a question as to the fate of the mainland. “No news of the metropole,” Charlotte answers gently. “There were some language barriers that need sorting out, but as far as we’ve understood it’s just some northern nations that have survived. Iceland, Norway, Denmark, and so on.”

Claire can’t hide a little disappointment. “I suppose it was something of a long shot. That aside, have we established formal communications?”

“No, and that’s part of the commotion. We need to find some way to close the language barrier, and what’s more the Federation Council needs to find someone who’s willing to travel.”

“And they’re not sending one of their own.” It’s not a question, more a statement of fact; the high-ranking policymakers in the Council are notorious for their personal reluctance to extend beyond the borders of the safe and thoroughly purified lands.

“No kidding. So now, on top of sending an envoy, the tricky part will be finding someone who can talk to the Europeans.”

“You said Denmark had survived. Aren’t there any Danish speakers from Greenland still alive in Nunatsiavut? Or anywhere, for that matter?”

Charlotte perks up, but she settles quickly back into a noncommittal face. “You catch on quickly. I think that’s the current plan right now, and everyone in the building is through the rolls trying to find some who might be willing to help us with translation. But I wouldn’t get too excited. Anyone who speaks Danish is likely to be more than a little senile right about now, and we need someone young and reliable if there’s going to be any kind of exchange with the people from across the Atlantic. No use having a platoon of fluent speakers if they’re only going to sound like they have a bunch of potatoes in their mouth.”

Claire nods, and then breathes deeply. “Well, I suppose we’d better get to work then.” And though she knows that her job has just changed overnight, from an afterthought into a political cornerstone, it’s only dimly that realizes the degree to which her life is about to change in kind.

 

* * *

 

**7 June, in the 121 st Year D.C., Agvituk, Nunatsiavut**

Anna glances out at the harbour of the town that’s come to be known as Agvituk. Her grandparents knew the town as Hvalsted, though both of those, she surmises now, have long since ceased to have much meaning. Even _mormor_ and _morfar_ had never seen the animals giving their name to the “place of whales,” but they told stories nevertheless about the great beasts that inhabited the sea before the monsters and leviathans, the wrathful children of Arnapkapfaaluk, took their place. They would breach here, among the waning early-summer icebergs and rocky outcroppings and barren islands, or at least that’s how the story went. Now, this ice and rock serves to shelter them from the very beasts that threaten their existence now, and for a long time that thought had sustained her motivation to sail with the teams of hunters out into the open ocean, or otherwise to scour the south coasts of Greenland and destroy the sea beasts’ nests. But the constant reminder that her ancestral homeland has become a nesting ground for giant monsters that threaten her existence yearly has taken its toll on her psyche, and for the first time in years she’s spending the first days of June on land rather than out on the wave of icebreakers and hunting ships.

“Ms. Okalik?” calls an unfamiliar voice, from the direction of the town centre. It’s a man, dressed as formally as one can really get in Nunatsiavut, with the temperature barely cracking five degrees in the late morning light, and he tugs nervously on the lapel of his coat. 

> **_Anna Okalik_**  
>  Age: 27  
>  _Nationality_ : Nunatsiavummiut  
>  _Immunity_ : **Yes**  
>  _Languages_ :     
>  _About_ : Probably the last native speaker of Danish under the age of ninety. Definitely the last native speaker of Danish under the age of seventy. Burned out on endless beast-killing younger than most, but given the only other job opportunity involves taking care of her senile grandparents, she’s kind of wondering what to do with her life.

“Do I know you?” she asks, taking in his appearance. Though he hasn’t said enough for her to know much about him, from his clothing and his demeanour she can tell he isn’t a local.

“I’m with the Canadian government,” he answers.

She does a double take. His voice is even, his words slow and measured. It’s quite clear that Inuttut is not his native language, but he strings together his words adequately enough that Anna doesn’t immediately resort to fractured English to try to communicate. “Okay, I definitely _don’t_ know you. Who are you?”

“James Noseworthy. I work for the Federation’s office of External Affairs.”

> **_James Noseworthy_**  
>  Age: 45  
>  _Nationality_ : Newfoundlander  
>  _Immunity_ : **No**  
>  _Languages_ :     
>  About: High-ranking enough that learning the three official languages of the Federation was a necessity, low-ranking enough that he gets sent on errand missions to the extreme corners of Nunatsiavut. Would really rather be kicking back on a Nova Scotian beach right now, but his work—and his lack of immunity—have conspired against his persistent dream.

Anna wrinkles her nose. “Okay, I’ll try that again, because you may have just said words, but they mean nothing to me. Who are you, and what are you after?”

“Like I said, Canadian government. You’ve heard about the news, haven’t you? About making contact with Europe?”

“Sure, who hasn’t? My feeling is let the French lose their minds over a tearful reunion with their transatlantic cousins. I’m not interested.”

“You realize there is more than one kind of European, don’t you?” Noseworthy sighs. “Listen, I’m just here to ask a simple question, as your capabilities might be highly valued during our interactions with them. If I have understood correctly, you can speak Danish, is that correct?”

Anna rolls her eyes. “If you need someone who speaks Danish, you’re better off looking in a nursing home.”

“Indeed. And how easy it would be to shuttle a demented, grandfatherly Dane in an aircraft to Europe’s capital! No, Ms. Okalik, we need someone capable of walking on their own two legs, and so we come to you.”

The mention of _aircraft_ piques Anna’s interest. Though a few old planes have been maintained diligently, most have become unusable hulks rotting on their old runways, and their gasoline is tightly controlled for fear of losing an important source of power. These days, the mention of a ride in an aircraft is enough to culture a childlike fascination in all but the highest echelon of military élites, and otherwise iron-willed soldiers turn to jelly at the thought of coming along for the ride in one of the Canadian Air Force’s museum-piece fighter planes. “All right. Yeah, I can manage Danish. What do you need me to do?”

“It’s a simple job. Just serve as a translator for us on our diplomatic visit to Europe. A week, at most, but I’m sure you’d be compensated handsomely.”

“Well, I can’t complain about the money.” Anna sighs. Figuring it a foregone conclusion either way, it is all she can do to offer tacit agreement. Who is she to resist the desires of the Council? “When do I start?”

 

* * *

 

**9 June, in the 121 st Year D.C., Saint-Pierre, France**

“What do you mean, _I’m_ going to Iceland?”

“It’s really quite simple, Girard. The speaker that we’ve found who can speak Danish is an Inuttut speaker. We all know how willing the Federation is to send any of their own out on missions like these, and the politics of having Nunatsiavut’s foreign minister representing Canada is regrettably somewhat…thorny. So the task falls to you to spearhead the delegation.” Charlotte leans back on her chair, immensely satisfied with her explanation.

“So despite the fact that my Inuttut is barely enough to keep up with the average eight-year-old, the known world is going to be relying on my interpretation of a half-fluent Greenlander’s interpretation of a Dane’s interpretation of an Icelander. All this largely as a result of a couple of racist Newfies,” Claire answers.

“I’m going to have to object with your use of the term _Newfie_.”

“Fine. All this largely as a result of a couple of racist Newfoundlanders.”

“It sounds so _uncharitable_ when you put it that way,” Charlotte says with a puckish smile.

“And yet that is the way that it is. So, I am going to visit Europe’s capital for whatever kind of ceremony, pomp, and circumstance they provide for our sake, and then what?”

“And then we see. Pack well,” is all she says, and as she gets up from the table to prepare herself, another group enters the room. 

A middle-aged man from Newfoundland breaks rank, and comes forward to introduce the woman by his side. In harsh, English-coloured Inuttut, he addresses Claire. “May I introduce to you the translator for your voyage, Anna Okalik.”

“Whatever,” Anna says. Claire can tell that she’s in for a long trip.


	3. Chapter 3

**12 June, in the 121 st Year D.C., Stephenville, Newfoundland**

It's not that Claire has never _seen_ an aircraft. Even Saint-Pierre has an airfield, a handful of grounded planes, rusting to nothingness, long since gutted of any useful equipment for the sake of preserving the two small crafts kept—though largely unused—in pristine condition, constantly tuned up for their quinquennial reconnaissance missions. But Newfoundland is sparing no expense at impressing the delegation of a group of nations that up until a week ago had been assumed a total loss to the Rash, and so when Claire arrives at Stephenville, bags packed, prepared for a transatlantic sea voyage, she is not prepared for the scene that greets her.

So it isn't that she hasn't seen a plane or an airport. After all, every five years, the French celebrate Bastille Day with the tradition of shooting off a lonely voyager from Saint-Pierre Airport off to discover previously isolated communities or unknown resources, and Claire remembers fondly her first childhood visit, the runway festooned with flags and ornaments and drenched in the heavy haze of patriotism and festivity. But Stephenville Airport is something entirely unlike anything Claire Girard has ever seen. Even the wide eyes of youth cannot stretch the paved expanse of Saint-Pierre to the extent that Stephenville's airport does, with multiple lanes and colossal hangars that look like they could hold an entire steamship inside. Like Saint-Pierre, many aircraft sit unused on the fringes of the takeoff runway, but unlike her hometown, where they have corroded into useless iron hulks, here they remain brightly painted with the green-white-pink of Newfoundland's Tricolour, and Claire can only look on goggle-eyed as she beholds the extent of her neighbour province's aviation facilities. One plane that she can clearly see, parked but prepared for action, is an aircraft so large that it could fit more than a hundred people—too absurd for Claire to even fathom, and so she turns her attention back to the formalities and the fanfare of the transportation being prepared for her and the crew which has, for better or for worse, formed into Canada's official delegation to the East.

The plane is smaller in comparison, certainly more reasonable as far as Claire is concerned, but her companions seem no less stunned. Charlotte, who still remembers her technologically-starved upbringing in Québec vividly, does not even attempt to restrain herself as she shrieks and giggles with uncontained glee. Even Anna, thoroughly unimpressed as she pretends to always be, has stood with a quiet, muted wonder for most of the rollout ceremony, only speaking up to shush James impatiently whenever he tries to whisper something to her in Inuttut.

(Later, she'll punch him playfully on the arm and tell him how god-awful everything he says sounds. He says that his Inuttut is better than her English. She says touché.)

When the time finally comes for embarking on the trip—when the _les Newfies de tabarnak_ have finally grown tired of patting themselves on the back for their egregious waste of jet fuel, Claire mutters to herself, and maybe a little bit to Charlotte—they've all mostly gotten over the novelty of looking at airplanes, and so they all have this face of weary worldliness as they're clambering into the tiny plane, waving for the newscasters and reporters and the Federation President, and every ounce of that indifference vanishes again when they're actually _inside_ , preparing for takeoff on the furthest flight undertaken in more than one hundred years. The silence is something between respectful and awestruck, until it's cut short by the pilot, whose scratchy voice jumps onto the tinny speaker with the catch of radio static.

"Hey, I'm Flight Lieutenant Florence Pike, and I am going to be your Amelia Earhart for this here little puddlejumper. In case you aren't up to date on the latest and greatest aircraft info, this beauty is a Bombardier Challenger 605 MSA, going strong at a good 127 years old. You're going to want to fasten your seat belts—and figure it out yourselves, because it's pretty simple, okay?—and in case there's a fire or the cabin air pressure bids us adieu, just jump out the exit and see what happens. It's probably better than catching fire! But that probably won't happen, so don't worry about that! Just keep your hands and feet from messing with my plane, and enjoy your flight."

> **_Florence Pike  
> _** _Age_ : 26  
>  _Nationality_ : Newfoundlander  
>  _Immunity_ : **No**  
>  _Languages_ : _  
>  About_ : It was a great trauma for seven-year-old Florence Pike to learn that becoming an astronaut, a common feature in her children's book illustrations, was not a realizable goal in the world that she lived in, but she has gotten about as close as possible, becoming one of the youngest—though nevertheless most skilled—pilots in the Canadian Air Force. It makes it easier that most people thinking willingly strapping yourself into a flying tin can built 120 years ago is insane.

Charlotte looks uncomfortable. "Who's Amelia Earhart?"

Florence glances back to the passenger section incredulously. "What do you mean, _who's Amelia Earhart_. Didn't they teach you anything in school? She's one of the most famous Canadian pilots. First woman to fly across the Atlantic. Figure if there's anyone we should be thanking for making this possible, it's her."

Anna grumbles quietly in the corner and prods James. "Were you going to translate any of that?"

James looks at her incredulously. "How on Earth am I supposed to translate _her_? I don't know half the words she said. I don't even know what this thing we're on is called! _I don't even know why I'm here._ "

She rolls her eyes. " _Tingijok_ , obviously. As in, a thing ( _jok_ ) that flies ( _tingik_ )."

"Fine. Our ancient flying thing is jumping a puddle to Iceland. Also, put on your waist hat."

"My _waist hat_?"

At this point Claire can't help but interrupt. "Did you just call a belt a _waist hat_ , Noseworthy?"

 

* * *

 

It feels for all the world like they're in space, at least to Claire, seeing the unmistakable curvature of the Earth, the shining blue of the ocean and the matte expanse of the sky melting into the rich, deep blue of the upper atmosphere, below them only water and scattered clouds. All of them have mostly retreated to their own windows, content mostly to gaze out the small galley windows and behold the wonder of nature from high in the sky. There's a surreal quality to being up here, a feeling like they're floating in some kind of dream—certainly better than takeoff, anyway, which was enough to send Claire's stomach and ears lurching for a good half hour. Now, though, it's calm. Peaceful. Far from human habitation on all sides, and more importantly from any dangerous beasts.

But the quietude is interrupted when a few bands of radio static come over Florence's receiver. "Whoops, looks like we're getting closer than I thought. I'm expecting that radio chatter is your Europartners wanting to check in. Can you get your Viking over here to make some small talk with them so they don't shoot us out of the sky? That'd be great, thanks."

Claire looks up at Florence, then at Anna, expectantly. "All right, off with your waist hat, Okalik. The woman who's responsible for getting us back onto land wants you to go work your magic and speak Danish at the Europeans. Do you think that you can manage that?"

Anna suddenly looks much less confident, but after a moment of thought slides back into a face of aggressively apathetic bravado. "If it keeps them from killing us, I guess, maybe." She saunters up to the empty co-pilot seat, all the while keeping her eyes half-trained on Florence with a glimmer of suspicion, and listens for the sound of some kind of language that she recognizes. Sure enough, there's a voice that Anna can at least mostly piece together on the other end of the line.

"—is Admiral Sigrun Eide, serving as captain of the NM Rån, requesting that unidentified aircraft identify itself, repeat, requesting that unidentified aircraft identify itself."

Anna does her best impression of a serious, no-nonsense old Danish fisherman. "This is the aircraft carrying the delegation of the Federation of Canada to our meeting in Iceland." Close enough, she figures.

"—Thor's balls, of all people they picked a _Dane_ —"

"What was that?"

"Nothing. I said _Thor is tall_. Right, so you're the delegation from Canada! I suppose you'll be wanting some place to land your airplane."

"You know, that sounds pretty good to me."

"Ugh! I can only imagine the paperwork this is going to involve. Okay, fine. I'm going to radio back home and then they'll tell you where to put your ridiculous machine. The sooner I'm done with this, the sooner I can go back on patrol and start catching some sea beasts again. No offence, kid, but unless you can somehow manage to screw up _more_ than the people in my last non-military assignment, I'm thinking you can manage to get yourself from point A to point B without needing your hand held. Listen, I'll make some calls, patch you through to Reykjavík, and then my job will be done. Okay?"

"Okay."

There's a scratch of static as Sigrun switches off the channel, and it remains silent for a few minutes before coming back to life. On the other end an Icelander picks up. Unfortunately, the Icelander is also speaking in Icelandic, so when he says something Anna knows nothing more than the fact that—as usual—she doesn't understand.

" _Dansk_ ," she yells into the transceiver, a little too loud for everyone's taste. The Icelander makes a noise something like a terrified wail and call for help, and the next thing Anna knows she's on the other side of some kind of game of musical chairs, as the Icelander searches desperately for someone who can understand the terrifying woman's shrieks of demands for Danish. After some sounds of confusion for several hideously awkward minutes, a woman comes online and takes control of the conversation.

"I'll have you know I'm only here because I _really_ wanted to know how a person can possibly have quote, a _Danish emergency_ unquote."

> **_Solveig Dahlgren_** _  
> Age_ : 29  
>  _Nationality_ : Swede  
>  _Immunity_ : **No**  
>  _Languages_ :          
>  _About_ : After squaring away her childhood knowledge of the terrifyingly divergent dialect of Elfdalian with Standard Swedish, Danish and Icelandic were honestly a breeze. Currently on a semi-permanent mission to Iceland—"don't come back until you have something for me," said her boss—until they're willing to let her leave with some of their more technologically sophisticated radio technology. Part-timing with Iceland's Ríkisútvarpið as correspondent until then.

"What was that ungodly shit he was speaking? Was _that_ Icelandic?"

Even Solveig has to work through what Anna is saying, with its Greenlandic-Inuit intonations driving it even further from normal.  "A Danish emergency indeed," she mutters to herself.  "All right. I'm Solveig Dahlgren, and I suppose it has just been my job to get you safely onto the ground here in Iceland. What is your planned landing location, so we can prepare things on this side?"

Anna yells back to Claire:  "Where are we landing?"

 "I have no idea," Claire says, then yells forward to Florence:  "Where are we landing?"

"Keflavík," Florence answers. She's about to continue to explain, but Anna shushes her—no need to make it more complicated than it already is.

"Keflavík," Anna relays to Solveig, who breathes an audible sigh of relief.

"Good. Out of the way is good. We'll send a team to collect you when you arrive, and there should be flares marking the runway as you approach. We don't exactly deal with very much air traffic, so you aren't going to have to worry about other aircraft, but _please_ , whatever you do, do not hit a puffin mid-flight. You have no idea the kind of hellscaped bureaucratic bramble that would ensue. Is there anything else?"

There's nothing else, and within the hour, the long, low Reykjanes peninsula comes into view, and the reality of it all sets in.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I sympathize with James, because I, too, have accidentally called a seat belt a "waist hat."


	4. Chapter 4

**26 June, in the 121** ** st** **Year D.C., Faxaflói, 40 km from Reykjavík, Iceland**

In retrospect, Claire pretty much regrets everything that brought her here. 

It isn’t _angry_ regret, though, the type where she’s overcome with indignation and spends her two enforced weeks of solitude fuming silently and cultivating a single-minded obsession to slake her urge to strangle the person that decided the best place for her was a tiny quarantine chamber. (Worse still, that the quarantine chamber involved a whole lot of people who didn’t speak a word of a civilized language and whose idea of food required a very generous definition for the word “food,” and who furthermore might have been trying to communicate this whole time but whose bizarre vocalizations also required a generous definition for the word “communication.”) It’s more of a weary, resigned, almost peaceful regret, where after about ten days in solitary with nothing to keep her company but a shoddy satirical French novel and an Icelandic learning primer, she’d been overcome by an overwhelming meditative serenity. She’d looked over the novel a couple of times but spent most of the two weeks instead studying the primer, which from what she could tell was an almost hundred-year-old document aimed at teaching young Scottish students the language. And so, now that she’s at the end of her quarantine she has learned just enough to make a complete fool of herself when greeting the political leaders of the eastern half of the Known World.

“Claire Girard, your two-week quarantine is over,” says a man in an extremely fancy biohazard suit, as he opens the door. Claire can’t understand a word he says—and barely even her name, which he renders something like “Kleira Kiratt”—but she can tell from the context that she can finally leave, and that alone is enough relief that she lets out a huge sigh.   “Thank god,” she mutters under her breath, and begins to repack her things.

When she emerges, someone from the government, or so Claire assumes, has already begun to engage Anna in conversation. Claire pretends not to be maddened by the fact that she cannot follow along, and so mostly stands there expectantly waiting for her explanation to come.

“Now that we can ensure that you’re safe from infection, we’ve arranged a transport for you from this quarantine vessel directly to Reykjavík, where there will be an extraordinary meeting of the Nordic Council to welcome you to Iceland. Then we can discuss the technicalities of establishing trade, customs, regular transportation, political cooperation, and so on. You know, all of those protocols and rules that make the world keep turning.” The Dane looks very excited.

“Ahem,” Claire says, prodding Anna after he finishes his piece. “Do you want to tell me what she just said?”

“It’s cool, she just said they’re taking us to Reykjavík and we’re having some big boring talk or whatever.”

“A big boring talk or whatever.”

Anna rolls her eyes. “Yeah. Literally, and I quote, _a big boring talk or whatever._ Listen, can we get going? I kind of want to do something else that isn’t fucking around on this tiny sterilized boat before I die of boredom.”

Despite the two weeks spent in isolation, nobody much feels like talking on the ride back, as they’re carried across the bay of Faxa through a spell of fog and wind on a much smaller boat. This one is wooden, with a dragon’s head at the prow, but it looks nothing like the wooden ships of Canada’s harbours, the caravels with their magnificent triangular sails and their multiple decks piled on like layer cakes. Instead their boat—and, indeed, all the boats that dot the horizon and the vague gestures at a city hidden behind the fog—is stretched out, a thin, shallow vessel that slices through the water, playing a whisper-quiet balancing act on the whitecaps and breakers all the way to the inner harbour of Reykjavík, the capital of a known world that is growing before Claire’s very eyes.

As the fog lifts and the twinkle of city lights begins to materialize among the dark mid-morning clouds, Claire is shocked by stages as she begins to realize the extent of the city. She’s been to _cities_ , sure; a hub like Corner Brook boasts over twenty thousand people to its name, and even the smaller Saint-Pierre or Gaspé still number over five thousand. But Reykjavík seems to extend beyond rhyme or reason—it’s easily three or four times the size of Newfoundland’s capital, and hidden in the low, rolling fogbanks buildings with ten, fifteen, even _twenty_ stories erupt from the city centre, shimmering with polished steel and glass. Her mind wanders, washed over with wonder, as she picks out every last marvel from the skyline: there’s an immense snow-white steeple and a skyscraper at least 70 metres high and a waterfront complex drenched in wide-panelled crystal. She can’t suppress a laugh as she considers the absurdity, that she should ever have thought Paris to look like the provincial Saint-Pierre. Paris, thinks Claire, looked like Reykjavík.

It’s not just the sheer size, the monumentalism of the architecture, that has its chance to fill Claire with childish fascination. As they slide into port and find a free dock, they can see the bustle of the midmorning market in full swing, on a scale Claire didn’t even think was possible. For some time, Claire thinks there are more people here than there are in all of Canada—and though she’s wrong, the sheer number she learns later, of fifty thousand souls in a single place—is a shocking scale all the same for someone native to a nation of ten thousand.

At the lip of the harbour, an automobile—yet another luxury Claire is shocked to see share the road freely with short, sturdy horses and pedestrians—is idling, and her group’s host goes up to a window and engages in a quick conversation.

“You’re the van here to take us to the Council building?” There’s a nod of assent in reply, and once Claire, Anna, Charlotte, James, Florence, and the luggage are in the vehicle, it takes off for the city centre.

Now that they’re removed from the public eye and in the safety of the automobile, the others begin to loosen up a little. For the first time in two weeks, their own group of speakers, inside the confines of the van, outnumbers the native speakers of all the foreign Nordic languages, and all of them regain their voice somewhat.

Florence speaks up first. “So given the size of their _city_ , I’m a little terrified as to what the size of their _air force_ looks like. I wouldn’t want to be on the wrong side of these guys, that’s for sure.”

Even James, who has tried to be the “adult” of a group he considers to be somewhat on the wrong side of the maturity gap, has been keeping his face plastered to the window, taking in the sights of Iceland’s capital. “How can a city be bigger than _Corner Brook_?”

“Bigger than Corner Brook isn’t so hard, it’s the not being buggered by the rash part, mostly, that’s harder. You didn’t fail history, right? You know they say that some cities in Québec had more than a million people?”

“Sure, but that’s just talk. Nobody’s been that far in more than a hundred years, anyway. Well, except those religious wackos who want to reclaim the old city for the glory of God.”

“Hey!” Charlotte sulks. “We’re not all like that.”

“Yeah, well _some_ of you are,” Florence says. “I’ve seen them on the horizon when I’ve been on scouting missions. Just tiny, tiny fires at the edge of the biggest damn city I’ve ever put my peepers on.”

The van comes to a stop before a brick two-story building, and its door opens. After the heavy haze of wonder from seeing the huge buildings everywhere, the home of Iceland’s parliament and Nordic Council meetings, the Alþingi is far less impressive. Still, its well-appointed interiors remind Claire and her crew that this country is flourishing far more than Canada, which for all its stability has held dark undertones to its grim, ugly survival.

Anna’s new Danish-speaking government friend guides them through the hallways into a conference room seating around twenty, with four others sitting at the table already. The Dane gets somewhat excited and greets everyone in the room, before turning his attention back at Anna.

“So, welcome! Welcome to Iceland, and welcome to this meeting of the Nordic Council,” the Dane says. Anna translates it to Claire in Inuttut, who subsequently translates it into English for the rest of the group. She is already exhausted by this linguistic circus.

One by one, the five members of the Nordic Council, and a representative for the Minority Nations, all greet the Canadian delegation.

> **_Rún Bjarkardóttir_**  
>  _Age_ : 47  
>  _Nationality:_ Icelander  
>  _Immunity_ : No  
>  _Languages_ :   
> _About_ : As the Nordic Council’s representative from Iceland, Rún has a disproportionate sway on the government of the Council. Nevertheless, even if she wanted to be ruling the world with an iron fist, she’s generally too caught up trying to settle the permanent blood feud between the Norwegian and the Swedish council representative to be able to do much with her neverending power.
> 
> **_Lars Bergman_**  
>  Age: 40  
>  _Nationality_ : Swede  
>  _Immunity_ : Yes  
>  _Languages_ :      
>  _About_ : Like all Swedes, Bergman is preternaturally obsessed with the completion of the project to cleanse the entirety of the Sveavägen railway. Unlike most Swedes, he is on the Nordic Council and as such finds an easy platform for his extreme positions on funding it (“100% of the budget until every last troll is a twitchy ball of ash”). This results in some tense, heated discussions between him and the other council members, to say the least.
> 
> **_Ragnar “Fenris” Eide  
> _** _Age_ : 44  
>  _Nationality_ : Norwegian  
>  _Immunity_ : Yes  
>  _Languages_ :      
>  _About_ : Cousin of the very famous explorer-turned-Admiral of the Norwegian Fleet Sigrun Eide. A bit more soft-spoken than she is, but no less fond of hard drinking or large-scale troll murdering, he’s taken the job of Council representative while recovering from a repetitive strain injury in his hands from killing too many trolls. Currently a little worried about getting a repetitive strain injury from having to shake sense into Bergman, whose Dalahästen train Eide wants to shove down his throat.
> 
> **_Wilma “Kex” Eriksen_  
> ** _Age_ : 38  
>  _Nationality_ : Dane  
>  _Immunity_ : Yes  
>  _Languages_ :            
>  _About_ : The youngest member of the Council, Eriksen, much like the majority of Danes, spends most of her days with her nose burrowed deep into an old book from the Silent World, especially the German books that have become hot commodities in recent years after the undertaking in Year 102 to cleanse Fehmarn. On those days not whiled away with the company of her books, she delights in the review and refinement of protocol and rules of any and every kind. An odds-on favourite for the Supreme Court of the Nordic Council once her term with the Council is up.
> 
> **_Tuuri Hotakainen_**  
>  Age: 52  
>  _Nationality_ : Finn  
>  _Immunity_ : No  
>  _Languages_ :         
>  _About_ : Linguistic freak of nature and Finnish national hero celebrated for her part in the successful Year 90 journey into the Silent World. Upon returning, she was basically given free rein to do whatever she wanted, and after some years studying language, she has settled into her role as a stateswoman and official representative of the nation of Finland on the Nordic Council. Close friends and family opine that despite all of this, she has not grown a day in thirty years.
> 
> **_Hjalti Suðurland_**  
>  _Age_ : 45  
>  _Nationality_ : Scot  
>  _Immunity_ : Yes  
>  _Languages_ :   
>  _About_ : Though his name might give some pause, Hjalti Suðurland _is_ actually Scottish. Like most in his generation, and even those a generation older, he has never learned English and considers Icelandic to be his native and national language. Even names like _Sutherland_ , generally left unchanged in the first two generations, have begun to change due to the unfamiliarity of their pronunciation and origins. (His first name, Hjalti, has become very popular in Scotland, as it sounds very similar to the Icelandic name for the surviving archipelago, Hjaltland.)

Anna can only really nod as all of them introduce themselves in quick succession. That their jobs mean little to her is probably clear but is, regardless, frowned upon in polite company. 

“And for our end of the table—“ Anna begins.

Claire interrupts her before she can get too far.  “Whatever you do introducing us, just pretend that we’re all very important.”

“I am _very_ important, thank you very much. Unless you think you’d be just fine without me translating?” Anna coughs, and returns to face the Council.  “Right. So representing France and the Federation as a whole is Claire Girard. There’s James Noseworthy from Newfoundland, Charlotte Bélanger from Québec, and myself, Anna Okalik, from Nunatsiavut. And over there is our pilot, Florence Pike.” 

Wilma speaks up again. “It’s great to be able to meet and make contact with new people! After so long without establishing contact to intact countries, I think everyone here is excited to get down to the business of creating a process to begin safely trading and travelling between our nations. So, I’ve prepared a point-by-point list of all of the things we should cover today, beginning with a comprehensive customs policy and concluding, last but certainly not least, with a policy to put in place that will ultimately allow the sharing of medical research, fertility clinics, and immunity records.”

Anna stares at Claire, and a rising despair clutches the pit of her stomach. “Aren’t you going to translate that?” Claire asks, and it becomes progressively more clear that the limits of using someone whose command of the Danish language began and ended with caring for her senile grandparents were such that their translator would not be able to handle the complex geopolitical situation at hand.

She glances over to James and speaks with a low, growly panic.  “You have furnished me with an idiot for a translator, Noseworthy, and as a result we are now sitting here at the table with the diplomatic equivalent of our pants down.”

James looks at Anna, and back at Claire. “This is not my fault! How was I supposed to be able to judge her ability in a language that none of us can speak or understand in the slightest?”

Lars rolls his eyes as the entire delegation begins to bicker about something-or-other. Clearly this meeting was not well-planned.  “To think that I could be in Skövde cleansing the last of the Dalahästen’s route, and instead I’m here listening to a bunch of babbling foreigners.”

Ragnar just smirks.  “Æsir forbid that you not get to railroad every meeting talking about your ridiculous train tracks.”

“How dare you, you weaselly little Norwegian? I’ll have you know that it is thanks to the tireless, unceasing work of hundreds of Swedes that you have any food other than fish and skyr.”

“Fish and skyr sustain me. Swedes and their absurd railway projects do not.”

“Those are fighting words, Fenris!”

It’s at this point, halfway into an imminent fistfight, that Tuuri, the Finnish ambassador, speaks up.  “Um…would it help if I spoke in English?”

In about five different languages, everyone in the room responds, a mixture of shock and outrage on their tongues. “Wait, you speak _English_?” 

The meeting descends into chaos.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's worth watching [this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-mOy8VUEBk) before you read Anna's conversation in the second section.

**1 July, in the 121** **st** **Year D.C., Reykjavík, Iceland**

Across the ocean, everyone but the eccentric Saint-Pierrais are celebrating Canada Day, a celebration unusual not only for its firm roots in pre-Rash traditions but also in the fact that, as a sovereign nation-state, Canada had rather decisively ceased to exist, such that the flag-waving and the patriotism were being carried out were not in the names of their own nations, the ones that had stood firm against the Darkness for one hundred and twenty years, but in the service of the abstract supranational concept of a country that was unknown to all but the few surviving grandchildren of survivors, who'd heard the stories handed down to them as children by their own aging grandparents, the last old guard of the original survivors. Claire's never celebrated it personally, given her French roots, but she's always appreciated a good excuse for fireworks-watching, so on past Firsts of July she'd often be found on the shores of Corner Brook's Bay of Islands by evening, bearing witness to another year of safety and continuity. This year, though, she's on foreign shores, at the mercy of the Finnish representative of the Nordic Council and her linguistic prowess to communicate with the rest of the world.

Day six of their meetings are coming to a conclusion, and the chapters on travel, economy and trade have finally closed. All that remains is an imposingly thorough review of the medical situation that seems to be driving the well-meaning Danish councilwoman into a hysterical, euphoric tizzy. As the afternoon session drags on, and during a particularly extended ode to the subcommittee on the part of Eriksen, Tuuri sidles up to Claire and her comrades and offers an easy escape for the team.  "She's been talking about subcommittees for the last ten minutes. Why don't we call it a day, and I can show you around the city?"

Claire heaves an immense sigh of relief. "There is _nothing_ else I'd rather do right now than get out of here."

After a polite exchange of formalities, Tuuri breaks the five visitors out of the council chambers and onto Austurvöllur, the main square of Reykjavík. From every corner of the impossibly clear sky—Tuuri marvels, saying it's uncharacteristic—the city is bathed in sun, and when Claire looks around she sees a world utterly foreign to her, its safety unprecedented, its people more carefree than Claire can entirely comprehend. Smiling parents in sunglasses and casual clothes stroll through the central park, well-fed children in tow. Along the sides of the broad avenues, upscale cafés serve heaping portions of food paired with spiced hot beverages. Elaborate paintings and clothing mannequins line the windows, and at the centre of the park, under a titanic statue, a live band has attracted a cheering crowd. Any doubt that Claire might have had before that this city is a paradise on earth melts away in the face of seeing the extent of Reykjavík dressed up in its weekend finest.

"You have a truly beautiful city," Claire says reverently, eyes still latching on every successive detail she notices as they begin walking once again.

"Oh, thank you so much!" Tuuri beams, adding a nervous laugh. "Where I come from isn't nearly so advanced, but Reykjavík really is amazing."

At first, Claire had had some trouble catching on to the things Tuuri said, her English inflected by a curious brogue resembling nothing Claire has ever heard. But by day six, Claire has mostly figured out the ins and outs of her idiosyncratic patterns of speech. "Well, even our finest accommodations pale in comparison to what I'm seeing here, so I'm sure wherever you're from—Finland, is that correct?—is lovely as well." She pauses a bit, but when she speaks again her voice flips into a sarcastic tone as she reveals the secret of their grand entrance by air. "Truth be told, though we intended to impress you as much as possible by flying into Reykjavík's airfield, I think it turned out to be more a waste of fuel than anything else. I thought our people knew what civilization looked like, but it's clear that I was mistaken."

"What is Canada like?" asks Tuuri.

"Well, I don't really think of myself as Canadian, _per se_ ," explains Claire, "but that's mostly a historical artifact today, as much as anything else. To understand it as a whole...I would say the largest difference between us is that we had no place that survived entirely, as you did with Iceland. Even our largest and most developed country, Newfoundland, lost ninety percent of its people to the disease, so we have never had a place as safe or as untouched as your people. So in addition to having, apart from the Québécois, a low immunity to the disease, we lost a large amount of our infrastructure as well."

Tuuri makes a sad face, so Claire hastens to explain.

"I don't mean to call it a terrible place! I love my home, small as it may be in comparison to this city. We have had our share of difficult history, to be fair, but we have also had our triumphs. Within my lifespan, we have purified a large amount of land to the south, and food has never been a difficulty since then. And I think now that we have re-established contact, things will only become better."

"I can't wait to see all of the things that you have to trade with us! We've found lots of new things, like old books and new kinds of food, in our explorations to the south, but I'm sure you'll have many other things to offer as well," Tuuri says, before glancing up at their first destination, the second-tallest building in the Known World. "Anyway, here we are! This is Hallgrím's Temple."

Claire stops to relish the view for a moment, taking in the awesome sight of the sides of the temple climbing like an ocean wave from the ground to the tip of its spire, crowned with an unfamiliar star-shaped sigil.  "Incredible, isn't it?" she says, back to Anna. 

But when she turns her head back to face Anna, she realizes that Anna and James have disappeared completely.  " _Goddamnit_ ," exhales Claire.

 

* * *

  

**1 July, in the 121** **st** **Year D.C., Reykjavík, Iceland**

"Anna, what the hell, is there any particular _reason_ you decided that you should get us both lost—"

"I didn't want to listen to them keep rambling on in English, _bo_ -ring."

"—also not to mention why did you bother to bring _me_ along, it's not as if I'm going to be of any use here, you could have left me there so I could have gone sightseeing with everyone else—"

"I don't know, I guess you're kind of like leverage. Or bait. Or, I don't know, a sacrificial offering in case things stop going my way."

"—and that's not even beginning to get into the question of why I'm here in the first place, which by the way I _still don't know_ , and where are we going, why are we getting _more lost_ —"

"James, would it kill you to lighten up for just a moment? I'm just trying to find something more interesting than finding someone ramble about how their buildings are the greatest in the world. Maybe find someone who speaks a language I can actually understand. _Who knows_ what we might find! Now keep up."

"—okay but Claire and I both speak Inuttut—"

"You and Claire talk like children who've been locked in a sensory deprivation room for years. You can hardly tell your head apart from your ass."

By this point, it's already too late for James's protests to amount to much. Having separated from the group a good ten minutes ago, the two of them have little hope of running into Tuuri, Claire, Charlotte, and Florence, so Anna decides to strike out on her own and see for herself what the city has to offer. After another half-hour or so of exploration, they finally wind up in a neighbourhood where Anna's found herself at home—among the thick evening haze of hops, spices, and cooking oil, Anna and James have stumbled upon one of Reykjavík's large expatriate communities, Little Denmark.

"Wow, I can actually understand the signs here," Anna says, clearly satisfied with herself.

"Don't get ahead of yourself, Reading Rainbow," James quips, with a quick roll of his eyes. "Last time you said that we almost had a minor diplomatic crisis."

"Shut up! Now if you're done being stupid, let's go find something interesting to do."

James sulks in silence, until he finds a perfect opportunity to snark again. Spying something that looks like a bookstore out of the corner of his eye, he points it out to Anna. "Maybe you can solve your little Danish emergency in that bookstore."

She glares at him, but has to admit that the idea isn't unappealing to her, at the very least because there would be something for her to look at in there. "Don't think it's because of you," she grumbles as she swings the door open and walks in.

 "Welcome," says the proprietor, an older gentleman with excellent sideburns, from his corner, first in Icelandic, then in Danish.

Anna can't quite make out the Danish, but it sounds enough like a greeting that she echoes it back. 

He grunts in acknowledgement. "Can I help you?"

She doesn't really know what she wants, so she thinks back to her time caring for her elderly grandparents and conjures up something that she thinks sounds right.  "I'm, uh, I'm looking for a _kamelåså_."

The owner looks uncomfortable and fidgets for a few seconds before searching through a couple of drawers and shelves. He pulls out a seemingly perfectly generic object and thrusts it in front of her.

Anna looks at it for a moment and cocks her head sideways. "That's not a kamelåså."

He nods solemnly in agreement. "No, it isn't."

"Do you even know what a kamelåså is?"

"No idea," he says, seemingly unmoved. "Do you?"

"No," she says, more visibly disappointed.

"Oh." He glances out the window at the quiet side street, lit by a low-hanging sun casting long shadows from the west. He doesn't say anymore, but doesn't seem bothered by the silence either. 

"Sorry, I'm not from around here. I probably would be better off asking for a book, wouldn't I?"

"Probably," he says. "Where are you from?"

"Canada. Other side of the ocean, I'm guessing you've heard?"

"Ah, yes. Well, welcome to Iceland. I'm Mikkel," he says, extending a hand.

> **_Mikkel Madsen  
> _** _Age_ : 65  
>  _Nationality_ : Dane  
>  _Immunity_ : **Yes**  
>  _Languages_ :    
>  _About_ : Somehow still selling his share of the books he acquired during the celebrated Year 90 Expedition into the Silent World. Mysteriously, his stock seems to continue to increase; however, this scandalous fact is not mentioned in polite company.

"Anna. Nice to meet you," she says, or at least she thinks she says but doesn't really know, considering how unpredictable Danish can be. He repeats it, though, so she feels a little better about it afterwards. He may be kind of an old man, she thinks, but speaking to Mikkel in Danish is an experience unlike anything she's felt in years. Maybe, just maybe, this new world won't be so bad.

 

* * *

  

**1 July, in the 121** **st** **Year D.C., Reykjavík, Iceland**

" _FENRIIIIS._ "

Lars Bergman, the Swedish council representative, can be heard from a good thirty metres outside the Alþingi. From here, it almost seems as though he's carrying on a conversation by himself; his laconic nemesis rarely raises his voice above normal, the effect of which being that Bergman's bellowed hysterics about his precious train funds seem all the more unhinged.

 "You don't understand, Eide, you think that your little coastal fishing villages and your hunting ships and your silly Norwegian god-worship would be anything at all without the vital backbone of Swedish rail and industry? You think that your people would not go mad with boredom if the Swedish breadbasket were not there to provide you half of your meal after an honest day's work? Or that your settlements clinging to the ocean would have ever expanded without the labour and ingenuity of Swedish cleansers literally laying down their lives for you?"

A pause, then: "What do you _mean_ you still won't approve the funding? You fish-addled Norwegian devil! No respect for the railway that brings you a life worth living! And—   no, listen, Rún, I'm just explaining to our thick-headed Norwegian colleague that his life would be a joyless existence sustained by fish oil without the tireless work of my colleagues in keeping our illustrious Dalahästen safe from the darkness, and that unless we secure the funds necessary to cleanse the last Silent stretch of land between the Ulricehamn and Smålandsstenar checkpoints, the very _lives_ of his _children_ are at risk. Think of the _children_ , Rún—"

Bergman's pontification grows louder and louder as Tuuri and her new Canadian acquaintances enter the building and near the council chambers, coming to a head just as Tuuri opens the door to the room and draws everyone's attention, interrupting him in the middle of his fit of indignation.

"—So..." begins Tuuri.

"Umm," Lars mutters, much more quietly.

There are so many things she could say, but she eventually settles on this: "It's eight in the evening. What are you doing still here?"

Ragnar glances at Lars, and the pregnant pause says it all. "Lars was just telling us about some of his ideas for completing the cleansing of the Sveavägen."

"Indeed," says Rún. "What are _you_ doing here, Tuuri? I thought you were going to take the Canadians to see some of Reykjavík's tourist attractions."

"Well..." Tuuri says. "We may have misplaced a few of them."


	6. Chapter 6

**Year 121**

“They’re going to be here in an _hour_! What are you doing sitting here completely unprepared? And don’t tell me that you didn’t see this coming, because we both know that this day has been being planned for maybe six months, since about the time the Federation realized they wouldn’t develop hives just from coming within spitting distance of a bunch of foreigners. But here you are, half a step removed from dishabille, and the higher-ups—no, the _highest_ of the ups—are going to be here _any minute_. Can you imagine the kind of overwrought procession that’s going to be unravelling before our eyes? I don’t care if they’ve been sitting in Faxaflói for the last two weeks draped in oversized quarantine suits, they’re going to act like they own everything they touch. It’s like the Midas touch of narcissism, for god’s sake. They’re going to be tromping around in full military garb, it’ll look like a goddamn amphibious invasion of Newfies. We have to at least look the part if we don’t want a Class A Condescending Newfie Scoff instead of just the usual Class B type.”

“What makes a scoff Class A instead of just B?”

“It’s when their eyebrows furrow so much they violate the laws of fucking nature. Then their little fancy cat collars fly off like an over-taut cummerbund at a boozy wedding. Come on, get up and put _something_ on. It doesn’t even matter what it is, really, as long as it looks really complicated and fancy. They still think that Newfoundland is the centre of the world, and they’ll treat you that way unless you manage to look even fancier than they do.” Claire turns abruptly, and fiddles with one of the lapel pins on her uniform, a stiff, barely-worn outfit intended only for formal occasions that hasn’t seen the light of day in a year, since about the time when Claire stepped off the quarantine vessel ICGV _Eir_ and into Reykjavík’s harbour for the first time. After a year accustoming herself to the general dress code of the Icelanders—which, as far as she can tell, is somewhere between “sweaters, all the time” and “anything you like, as long as your work gets done”—she’s beside herself with worry that she won’t be dressed formally enough for the taste of her superiors.

Ragnhild stifles a laugh, but when she speaks it’s more out of perplexment than amusement. “So you’re telling me that I can’t wear a sweater.”

> **_Ragnhild Suðurland  
>  _**_Age_ : 23  
>  _Nationality_ : Scot  
>  _Immunity_ : Yes  
>  _Languages_ :   
>  _About_ : There aren’t a large number of Scottish families remaining, but being the Suðurland clan is about as high-status as one can get these days. The niece of Scotland’s former Minority Nation representative, Ragnhild has had ample resources to allow her to learn English, as the Scots have scrambled to reinstate it as a national language after making contact with the Canadian survivors. Otherwise considered a family failure for her general sloth, she took to English like a natural and proved them wrong by earning a spot as Claire’s Icelandic translator.
> 
> **_Claire Girard_  
>  **_Age_ : 34 **  
> **_Nationality_ : French  
>  _Immunity_ : Yes  
>  _Languages_ :      
>  _About_ : Once she had set foot in Reykjavík, it was practically unilaterally decided for her by the Federation that she would oversee the establishment of the Canadian embassy to the Nordic Council instead of returning to her largely irrelevant job in as a French minister. Refreshing as the change is, she hasn’t appreciated having to go back to learning another language from ground zero, even if it’s easier than her previous _bête noire_ , Inuttut.

“No sweater,” Claire answers, a little sadly. “Just make sure that whatever you wear looks very complicated. The Newfoundlanders are simple creatures, and are confused and impressed by complex patterns. If they bother to ask, tell them it’s your national costume.” Ragnhild just nods, shrugging a little, and walks off to change, leaving Claire alone in the foyer of the embassy as the clock slowly ticks closer to the Federation’s grand arrival.

The Canadian embassy occupies the embassy building of the Old World nations Germany and Britain, hastily reconverted from a community centre back into a diplomatic office after the re-establishment of contact. Though there isn’t the same satisfaction of continuity that would come from returning to the former Canadian embassy—it’s been a private residence for generations by now—Claire’s come to feel at home here. Without a particularly large budget, the building looks largely nondescript but for extensive flag-draping; she sees more of the Maple Leaf here than she ever did anywhere back home. She allows herself a French standard in miniature on her desk. 

Today, though, she’s pulled out all the stops, spending a little disposable income to spruce up the building into something she hopes will pacify the Newfoundlander-heavy Federation delegation. Discounted Þorrablót and Yule decorations line the walls; whatever used to be Christmas here is celebrated differently enough that Claire figures she can get away with it, her superiors none the wiser. She allows herself a small snicker.

When Ragnhild returns, she’s dressed from head to toe in a bewildering tartan costume. Claire says it’s perfect, and together they head to Reykjavík’s harbour, where the Federation’s magnificently overblown procession will begin any minute now.

 

* * *

 

Reykjavík in late autumn is rarely beautiful, slate-grey skies overcast for months straight, and clouds languishing in place from horizon to horizon. It reminds Claire of home, though here, in the waning months of the year, there’s even less light; the sun rises halfway into the morning and has already set halfway into the afternoon. If the Newfoundlanders have hoped for a triumphal parade, Claire thinks, they’re liable to be disappointed by the cold drizzle and the faint, weak daylight hanging over the entirety of the city, but even these circumstances can’t dampen Claire’s anxious anticipation for some kind of reconnection to her homeland, even if it comes in the ambiguous kinship of a bunch of Newfies. 

In the year since she’s seen her native shores, she’s developed an all-encompassing feeling of homesickness for the little things: more than just her home and her people, she misses the routine of waking up to a cup of holly tea, listening to the sound of the harbour from her bedside window, perhaps playing a record of one of the famous French or Canadian composers—Chopin, Schumann, maybe Tchaikovsky. 

(She learns later that the brazen Swedes have tried to claim Chopin and Schumann as their own. Who do they think they are, that they believe they could get away with that without someone finding out eventually?)

Before she can reminisce for too long, though, she’s motivated into action, an Icelandic functionary reminding her she’s ten minutes behind schedule. “Powering this car isn’t free, you know. Do you think we can get moving now?”

Claire winces. “Sorry. Yes, let’s get moving.”

For all Claire considers the Newfoundlanders the most vain of all the nations, the Icelanders have done their own part to maintain appearances. On this day of parades and formality, dozens of Icelandic military vehicles, all electric-powered, are out in force on the streets, and even before the arrival of the Canadian delegation, crowds have gathered to see the procession of cars rolling through Hverfisgata. From the dark windows, Claire sees more humans, she thinks, than she ever has in the rest of her life combined. More than thousands, there must be at least ten thousand people packed on the edge of the broad thoroughfare. All at once, Claire is again overwhelmed and humbled at the thought of humanity surviving in such great numbers. She hopes that a little bit of humility will strike the Newfies, too.

The procession moves quickly enough; even fifteen minutes of slow movement is enough to bring them the short distance from Hverfisgata to the docklands, where the magnificent Viking Line vessel sits conspicuously and deliberately, dominating the landscape. ICGV _Eir_ floats just inside the gates of the purified harbour, slowly approaching just in time for Claire and her crew to hastily organize themselves next to the élite of Iceland’s government.

“Hey!” calls the prime minister. “Glad you could like, join us.”

“Hello, Ragnheiður,” says Claire. “Are you looking forward to meeting my bosses, finally?”

“Yeah, for sure. But they aren’t going to be sick, are they? Like we’ve ruled that out, right? Nothing grosser than that, honestly.”

> **_Ragnheiður Bjarnadóttir  
>  _**_Age_ : 51  
>  _Nationality_ : Icelander  
>  _Immunity_ : No  
>  _Languages_ :   
>  _About_ : The Icelanders don’t really know how this happened either, exactly, but Ragnheiður’s promises to expand the Dagrenning genetic program were received well and she received an overwhelming majority in the Alþingi. What she does with her newfound power has yet to be seen.

“I think that was the point of the quarantine.”

“Right, okay. But I’m totally blaming you if they bring down civilization as we know it because of your weird foreign diseases.”

Claire thinks that’s a joke, but doesn’t really have the opportunity to find out. Just then the _Eir_ reaches the dock, and the thousands-strong crowd erupts into cheering and applause as a handful of members of the Federation Council, followed by dozens of the wealthiest businessmen in Canada, exit from the ship, taking their first steps in a truly foreign land for the first time in their lives. 

Even Claire feels her heart swell with excitement at the occasion—she may have lived year for a year, but as she’s been basically the only foreigner here, with the exception of her coworkers Charlotte and James (Anna disappeared a year ago, and the most Claire has been able to pry out of James, the last person to see her, is that she cut some kind of mysterious deal with a Dane to get her on a boat to Bornholm), she’s felt a bit like she’s simply jumped into another world, rather than paving the way to opening up a new section of the world connected with her own. 

This event, overdue as it is, feels much more like that. Up until now, trade has been confined and restricted to small, confined swaps by the military. Now, Claire can imagine the shelves of Icelandic groceries packed with the brands of food from her childhood, the sophisticated French tourists assembling in packs and gaping in wonder at the monumental architecture of Iceland, from Harpa to Hallgrímshöfið, even, one day, a cozy corner of Reykjavík playing host to expatriate communities from all over Canada. And on the other side of the world, Icelandic business will bring the conveniences of modern science and technology and make them available to tens of thousands of people.

The president of the Federation Council comes up to Claire and shakes her hand. She can’t wait for the future to come.

 


End file.
